


A Christen Carol

by lesbianrobinhood



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Christen has a coffee induced fever dream, F/F, Fluff, Holiday AU and Neighbors AU, Humor, Romance, it’s got all the essentials, my addition to the preath holiday fics, very light angst, which is relatable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28121550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianrobinhood/pseuds/lesbianrobinhood
Summary: When corporate lawyer Christen works through another Christmas, sometimes it takes a flirty neighbor and a visit from a couple of ghosts to realize what’s important in life.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 18
Kudos: 245
Collections: Preathfics Winter 2020 Collection





	A Christen Carol

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Little_oblivion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_oblivion/gifts).



> Hi!
> 
> I know, I’m horrible for never updating the high school fic! I haven’t abandoned it I promise it’s just quarantine has been hitting hard. That being said, I was approached to do join the Preath 31 days of holidays fics and I couldn’t say no! 
> 
> This is for everybody but also very much for little_oblivion. I won’t haunt you with ghosts of Christmas past, sweetheart, but I can promise you happy Christmas futures!

Christmas Eve morning dawned early that year. Weak, lukewarm sunlight pulled itself over the horizon and crawled across the surface of New York. It cast a soft golden glow across brick buildings and sparked brightly off grass covered in frost and dew. The morning started earlier than normal, before any sensible human managed to crawl out of their warm bed, but it started after Christen Press, who was already awake and standing at her windows when the sunlight reflected off them, and had been so for at least an hour. 

Already dressed sharply in a charcoal grey pencil skirt and a white silk blouse, she glanced at her watch and took a sip of her coffee. Then she turned on her work phone. 

A long pre-dawn meditation and yoga session had calmed her mind and her body. She was prepared, steady as a weathered soldier, for when her phone powered up and immediately began to chime softly with every incoming notification. 

“Time is money,” she remembered Carli Lloyd saying the day she hired Christen on as a junior member of their legal team at Lloyd & Rampone. “But not the way you think. You have a limited amount of time on this earth, Christen, and if you ever want to see the sign say Lloyd, Rampone, and Press you better use that time to make us money.” 

And she certainly did. 

Christen turned her back on the morning sky beyond the windows slipped on her heels as she read through her emails. Then she grabbed her keys and her purse while starting to answer them. She made it all the way to the lobby of her building without ever taking her eyes off work practically spilling out of the screen of her phone. She could have made it all the way to her chartered car like that if something hard hadn’t collided with her chest. 

“Oof.” Her phone topped from her hands to the ground. She would probably have followed it without the strong arms that wrapped around her to keep her upright. 

“Sonnett!” The owner of those arms scolded. “What the fuck, dude!” 

She blinked her shock away and Tobin let her go to pick up her phone for her. Her neighbor, Tobin. Her annoying, flirty, insistent, irritatingly gorgeous neighbor Tobin. As much as her constant attempts to seduce Christen got under her skin, Christen wasn’t BLIND, and she could appreciate the way Tobin’s arms filled out her shirt and how those full lips smiled when she handed Christen her phone back. 

Christen snatched it from her and Tobin made a show like the motion had hurt her, shaking her hand out and blowing on her fingers. 

“I know I’m hot but I won’t melt your phone.” Tobin winked at her.

She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, ignoring the way a sizzle of warmth curled in her stomach at the wink and instead focusing on how sore her chest was. The culprit was a soccer ball, held sheepishly by one of Tobin’s rowdy and irresponsible friends. 

“What were you doing, kicking that around indoors?” Christen snapped at her. “Are you twelve?” 

“Yes,” Tobin replied before her friend could answer. “Sonnett is twelve and a half, actually.” 

“Thirteen and three quarters!” The third person in their chaotic trio, a tall blonde with striking eyes, corrected.

Christen scoffed at them both and glanced at her phone. Thankfully the only damage from the tumble was Christen’s pride. “You could have broken something,” she scolded them anyway. She pushed aside the way she could feel her heart rate pick up when Tobin’s lips curled into a charming smile.

“Sonnett’s very sorry. Aren’t you, Sonny?” 

Sonnett made a tiny noise when Tobin nudged her hard in the ribs. “Very sorry,” she said, beaming a smile as bright as her nickname at Christen, apparently undaunted by Christen’s glare back. 

“I could make it up to you.” Tobin stepped closer and her voice dropped. It rumbled in her chest in a way that was irritatingly enticing. “Why don’t you come to dinner?” 

Christen blinked. That wasn’t the offer she was expecting. Usually Tobin was more of the lay it on thick sort of flirter. She tossed that lopsided smirk around like candy on Halloween. Christen was sure she wasn’t the first or the last person Tobin had assaulted with her dubious charms, no matter how dark and sincere her eyes were. 

“I have plans,” she answered.

Tobin quirked one annoyingly perfect eyebrow. “On Christmas Eve?” 

Truthfully, Christen had almost forgot it was Christmas Eve. She’d repressed the knowledge after last night’s blowout fight with Tyler, when Christen had informed her she wouldn’t be coming home for the holiday. Too much work, she’d insisted, half-listening to her sister’s voice as she’d typed out an email and balanced a quickly cooling bowl of soup on her knee. No matter what Tyler said, no, corporate legal work did not stop for anybody or anything, not even a holiday. 

“Christen?” Tobin’s voice shook her out of her reverie. She was looking at now with a concerned tilt of her head, as if Christen’s wandering mind was something to be concerned about. 

Christen dropped her phone into her bag and closed it with a decisive snap. “Yes, on Christmas Eve. Not all of us can do whatever you do where you can decide when to work.” 

“I’m an artist,” Tobin said. As if Christen didn’t know that. As if the first thing Tobin hadn’t done was to make a joke about being good with her hands. 

“And those of us with actual jobs need to work.” She brushed past Tobin, ignoring the flash of emotions that passed over her face before she turned to let Christen by her. 

“If you change your mind we’re having dinner,” Tobin’s voice trailed behind her. “Stop by!” 

“Let her go, Tobs,” one of her friends said back. She barely caught the words as she swept out the door. “It’s too warm in here for her. She’s probably starting to melt.” 

* * *

“Christen!” 

Her name was yelled the second she walked through the door of Lloyd & Rampone. Two different voices, two drastically different tones. Christen turned to Carli first. 

Carli moved through every space she occupied with the force and personality of a slow-moving glacier. She was cold and inevitable. And, if glaciers practiced corporate law, maybe they’d be as deathly good at their job as Carli Lloyd. 

“Where are we with the Everetts Holdings merger?” She asked. 

Christen lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “One of the smaller companies is still holding out. We’re on track to-“ 

“Holding out for what?” Carli interrupted her, closing the folder in her hands with a decisive snap. “They don’t like money?” 

“Well,” Christen swallowed nervously against the way Carli made her feel when she stared at her like that, as if her eyes were slowly peeling every layer of skin and sinew away from her bones to inspect her very soul and what she found was lackluster at best. “They’re an older company and smaller. It’s a heritage and family thing. They don’t want to give up that history for-“ 

“Up the offer by 10,000,” Carli ordered. “If they don’t change their minds by noon call the bank manager and have him lean on the rent for the property. Make them see that our offer is better than any alternative. I want this finished by the end of the day today.” 

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Christen found herself arguing. She wasn’t sure how or why. The words came out without permission or participation from her brain. 

Carli stopped halfway through turning away from her. She raised an eyebrow at Christen, and for some reason her mind flashed to Tobin making the gesture earlier and the mischief and warmth that she’d exuded that Carli lacked making the same face. 

“Right,” she said slowly and carefully, as if Christen was a particularly dumb child. “And what a nice present it will be for Mr. Everetts when we get it done for him.” 

“The bank manager won’t even be-“ 

Carli was walking away by that point. “I don’t care how you do it, Christen,” she threw over her shoulder. “Get it done or why do I even pay you?”

Christen was so busy watching her future walk away in four inch heels that she didn’t hear Becky walk up behind her until her friend put her arm around her shoulder. 

“Don’t listen to her,” she said, tugging Christen into her side. “Christie won’t let her fire you.” 

Christen was less convinced. “I don’t work under Christie,” she grumbled. She slid out from under Becky’s arm. 

Blue eyes so light they verged on being grey crinkled slightly in the corners when Becky offered her a consoling smile. She didn’t let Christen get too far away, instead putting her hands on Christen’s shoulders so Christen had no choice but to look at her. 

“Relax,” she said. “Contact the heritage family, leave a message for the bank manager, send Carli an email at the end of the day saying the bank manager wasn’t in. Then come get drinks with me and Crystal. We have something we want to talk to you about.” 

Instead of calming her like it was supposed to, the mere mention of ‘needing to talk’ sent her into an anxious tailspin. 

“You’re not leaving me, are you?” She asked with a forced chuckle at the end. 

Becky could show no emotions in two places: the courtroom and a poker game. She’s been Christen’s friend and mentor through undergrad and law school, and she’d been the one to pull Christen in as a junior associate in Lloyd & Rampone. Christen knew Becky, and so she knew what it meant when her eyes flicked away for a moment before she smiled. 

“You are,” she breathed out in horror. “Both of you?” 

Becky curled her hand in the curve of her elbow and tugged Christen sharply into an empty conference room. 

“After the new year,” she admitted without preamble. 

“You’re kidding,” Christen half-begged. Becky’s face didn’t change. “You’re not kidding. To do what? Where are you going to go?” 

“We’re tired.” Becky sat at the long conference table and gently kicked a chair out for Christen to sit as well but she stayed standing, genuinely too wound up to sit still. Becky couldn’t leave. Becky was the reason she was here. 

“So go on vacation.” 

Becky sighed. “We’re tired of here, Chris. We’re tired of the work. Doesn’t it eat at you that we just help wipe out business to pave the way for conglomerates and corporations?” 

It felt like being punched in the head by a champion boxer. It felt like her brain rattled in her skull. It didn’t even sound like Becky was speaking English. 

“We just have to climb up a little more,” she said, her voice sounding wooden to her own ears. “When we’re partners we can pick our own cases, do stuff pro-bono…” 

Becky scoffed. “We’re never going to be partners, Chris!” She lowered her voice a little. “Crystal and I are leaving and we want you to come with us.” 

Christen was shaking her head before Becky finished talking. “I can’t,” she insisted. “I’ve put so much of my life into this firm. I put my soul into it.” 

“And they’ll keep it,” Becky grabbed her hand. “They’ll keep it and they won’t give it back. Look where we are, Christen! On Christmas Eve!” Her eyes flicked across Christen’s face, but whatever she was looking for she didn’t seem to find it. She squeezed her hand once, tightly, before letting go. “Just think about it,” she said. “And don’t work too hard today, okay?” 

“I won’t,” Christen promised. 

* * *

She’d lied. 

The sun had set and the night sky was drooping with heavy grey clouds that all but promised the snow that’d been forecasted that morning. Christen had her back to the windows. An entire army of disposable, compostable coffee cups were laid to rest in her garbage can by her desk and none of them seemed to be doing their job. The clock ticked onwards and it felt like the words on her screen were being projected through water. She couldn’t seem to focus on them. She was so TIRED. 

With every soft click of the hands of the clock on her wall it felt like her eyelids got heavier and heavier. 

Finally she sighed and went over to the couch in her office. Twenty minutes, she promised herself as she set an alarm on her phone. Twenty minutes and then she’d call the bank manager again, and answer the dozen emails she would have missed in the meantime, and...and…

And something was tickling at her cheek. 

Christen huffed and batted it away. It returned more insistently. She groaned and turned her face into the pillow. 

The same moment she remembered she was alone in the office, whatever was bugging her bopped her on the forehead instead. 

Christen shot straight up and swiped at whoever or whatever with a vicious right hook. Her eyes opened to register it was Becky just before her fist connected. She went through all five stages of grief at once and - 

And fell off the couch as her fist went right through her friend as if she wasn’t there. 

“Geez.” Becky stood over her. “Did that hurt?” 

It...hadn’t, actually. Christen looked at the couch and saw herself still there, lying quietly under the thin grey blanket she kept for the too many nights she slept in her office. 

Christen gasped. “Did I die?” 

“Not yet!” Becky informed her cheerfully. “Not for like another seventy years, give or take. We’re just going to go on an adventure.” 

Christen blinked at her. “I’m dreaming?” She asked. 

“Sure! Let’s go with that.” Becky grabbed her arm and PULLED. Suddenly they were surrounded by light and sound, so different from her quiet and dark office that Christen clapped her hands over her ears. It didn’t do anything to dull the sound. 

“Why are we here?” Christen yelled. 

It was the lobby of her building, but it also wasn’t. It was the lobby of her building four years ago when she’d first moved in. The hanging lights dropped with fake icicles, garlands criss crossed over the hall and wreaths hung off the door. Christmas lights were wrapped around her favorite part of the building: the sculpture in the center of the lobby. Massive sheets of metal lovingly and meticulously hammered, soldered, and welded to create an almost delicate sculpture of a woman with her hands extended, looking up towards the giant domed skylight of the lobby. 

She remembered the lobby decked out like this for a Christmas party that first year. She wondered if it meant anything that she couldn’t remember if they’d decorated like that this year. 

She turned back to Becky and was surprised to see her friend dressed to the nines, a flowing red satin dress hugging her shoulders and hips and flowing around her legs. She looked down at herself, but she was still dressed the same. 

“This was the last Christmas you enjoyed yourself.” Becky told her. Unlike Christen, who had to yell against the noise of the crowd, Becky’s voice practically floated into her ears. 

“I started to work at Lloyd & Rampone the day after Christmas,” Christen said, half to herself. 

“And you’ve sold your soul ever since.” 

Christen glared at her friend, who just clasped her hands behind her back and smiled innocently. “Why are you showing me this?” 

“I want you to remember what life looked like before work became everything.” 

“It’s not everything!” But even she could taste the way the lie sat on her tongue. 

Becky turned her and gave her a gentle shove towards the middle of the room. There was...her. A younger her. A sunny California girl who owned a deep green sundress for the Christmas party but no snow boots to battle the storm that future Christen knew she would wake up to the next day. 

At the center of the room, gazing up at the sculpture with big eyes, past-Christen didn’t notice someone approaching her until that person touched her gently on the elbow to get her attention. 

“Tobin,” she sighed. She wanted to be annoyed, and she wanted to hate the way her younger self turned and immediately gave Tobin a very obvious look from her tailored burgundy shirt to her black slacks and back up. 

Except Tobin had looked particularly delicious that Christmas and so past her got a pass for checking her out. Christen felt the same tingling in her fingertips now that she had felt then, with Tobin smiling at her beneath flowing Christmas lights, shaking her hand and curling her lips around the words ‘I’m an artist’. 

“I still don’t know how she affords to live in this building,” Christen said to Becky. She immediately felt guilty even though Tobin couldn’t possibly hear her. 

“Don’t you?” Becky guided her closer to the base of the statue and there, right at the bottom near past-Christen’s foot, was a small bronze plaque with the inscription T. H. 

“This is Tobin’s?” She reached out to trail her finger across the letters. “How did I not know that?” 

“You have to know that,” Becky told her. “I don’t know anything that you don’t.” 

Christen sighed. “Because you’re my ghost of Christmas past,” she said. 

A bell appeared in Becky’s hand and she rang it. Rather obnoxiously, in Christen’s opinion. “There we go.” 

“I’m not that bad!” Christen threw her hands up in exasperation. “So I’ve been a little focused on work. I’m not Ebenezer Scrooge level!” 

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Becky shrugged at her. “I’m not even real. The real me is sitting in a bar with your coworker, moving on with their lives and their careers while you stay here and sleep on your couch in your office.” 

“Rude.” 

“True.” She pointed to where past Tobin and Christen had made their way to the makeshift dance floor. “But sometime that night you made the decision that your career was more important than your happiness and you’ve been paying for it ever since.” 

“I don’t need a relationship to be happy!” 

“It’s not about Tobin. It’s about what she represents. One of the many opportunities you let go in pursuit of something that’s not even your DREAM.” 

Christen turned from where her past self was being twirled out and then back into Tobin’s arms and told herself she couldn’t feel the phantom heat from Tobin trailing her fingers across her lower back. 

“Take me back,” she demanded. 

Becky frowned at her but complied. She tugged Christen’s arm again. A little harder than necessary, but the end result was the same and they were back in Christen’s small, dark office. 

“You’re too stubborn,” Becky accused. 

“I learned from the best,” Christen shot back. 

Becky sighed. “Just think about what I said?” She implored. “And good luck!” 

“Good luck with what?” Silence. Christen looked over her shoulder but Becky was gone, just the lone golden bell she’d rung so obnoxiously earlier sitting on the edge of Christen’s coffee table. She turned to look back at her sleeping self. 

“Hi.” 

She jumped nearly out of her skin. Or she would have if she had skin to jump out of. Standing in front of her, decked out in the most ridiculous Christmas sweaters she’d ever seen, was - 

“Tobin’s friends?” 

The two blondes she’d literally run into earlier that morning grinned at her. “We prefer Lindsey and Sonny,” the taller one said. “But we’ve been called worse.” 

Christen just continued to stare at them. “You’re my ghosts of Christmas present?” 

“We’re Christmas presentS,” the shorter one, Sonny, corrected proudly. She tugged on one of the large bows on her shiny sweater for emphasis. 

“Why?” 

“Because we’re gifts to society.” 

“No I meant,” Christen sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “Why are you here?” 

The taller one, Lindsey, brushed her hair back from her face and shrugged. “Don’t ask us. We’re just figments of your over-caffeinated imagination, remember?” 

“Okay, well...let’s get this over with.” Christen held out her hand. “Beam me up, Scotty.” 

Sonny grabbed her hand and PULLED. 

Christen had never been in the apartment they ended up in, but it wasn’t for lack of Tobin trying. And she knew it was Tobin’s apartment. The pictures on the wall, the canvases and paints shoved into one corner, the Converse by the door...even cleaned up and decorated for Christmas, the space screamed of the messy artist. 

It was packed to the gills with people. A Christmas tree groaning under the weight of ornaments and almost too big for the space was wedged into the corner of the living room, the kitchen table looked ready to sag under the amount of food on it, and people were perched in all sorts of weird places eating off plates and laughing. 

The real Sonny and Lindsey weren’t dressed in gaudy Christmas sweaters, and so she could tell the difference when her ghosts amused themselves by following their real selves around and pulling faces at them. 

“You’re supposed to be teaching me some sort of lesson,” Christen reminded them. 

“Why?” Sonnett asked, trying to poke herself in the cheek and looking delighted when her hand went through her own head. “You already know what the lesson is. Seems like a lot more work for us.” 

“Just wander around,” Lindsey suggested. “I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.” 

Christen rolled her eyes but did just that. She meandered through the kitchen and the living room and down the hallway. She wasn’t looking for Tobin - not really - but she wasn’t disappointed when she found her. 

She told herself she’d never pictured Tobin’s bedroom before but somehow the soft orange comforter on the bed and the polaroids stuck into the edge of her bureau mirror fit. Tobin was sprawled on top of her covers, shoveling food sideways into her mouth in a way that should have been more disgusting than it was. A tattooed blonde sat on the floor balancing her plate on her knees and occasionally feeding a bite to the beautiful brunette leaning into her side. 

Tobin lifted her head and looked at Christen. For a moment, her heart leapt into her throat as she thought Tobin locked eyes with her. Her heart stayed where it was even after she realized Tobin was looking past her, towards the sliver of the front door just barely viewable from her room. 

“Stop,” the blonde said around a mouthful of food. “She’s not coming, Tobs.” 

“I wasn’t looking for anyone,” Tobin argued, turning away from where she was most certainly looking for someone. 

“Can I ask a question?” The brunette asked. “And don’t say I just did.” 

Tobin hid her smirk into a bite of mashed potatoes. She waved her hand as if she was a royal granting permission to approach the throne. 

“Why don’t you just give up?” 

Tobin’s smirk disappeared. It made those attractive laugh lines around her mouth look much more solemn. “Not this again.” 

“Ali’s right, Tobs.” The blonde piped up. “She’s beautiful. I won’t argue that. But she barely gives you the time of day. You said she yelled at Sonny this morning. And she definitely lied about having plans tonight.” 

“It’s been four years,” Ali carried on in an effortless way that told Christen they were a couple even more than the way they were sitting. “It can’t feel good to keep running into a brick wall.” 

“You don’t get it,” Tobin argued. She stabbed at her potatoes moodily and wouldn’t look at her friends. Christen stepped into the room to stand at the foot of the bed. She should be going to find her ghosts of Christmas present and ask them to take her out of here, but the thought of moving away from Tobin pulled at her heartstrings. 

“So explain it to us.” 

“There’s something about Christen. She’s...she’s funny, when she wants to be. And she’s smart. Just so ridiculously smart. Yeah she gets annoyed sometimes and she acts uptight but...She’s - I don’t know. She’s special. I can’t explain it.” 

Christen sat on the bed. Tobin was still refusing to look at her friends and it meant it looked like she was staring at where Christen’s hand almost touched hers. 

“She’s worth it,” Tobin finished after a moment. “She’s worth me trying.” 

The tears were a surprise to her. They came out of nowhere, but suddenly she could feel them, could feel the heavy way they hung on her eyelashes and the crushing grip they had on her lungs. 

“I’m not,” she told the artist who couldn’t even hear her, who continued to defend her to her friends. “I’m not worth putting your happiness on hold.” 

A clear bell rang out. The scene in front of her froze and Christen turned to see Sonnett perched like a monkey on Tobin’s bureau, ringing that golden bell. 

“Whoo!” Lindsey raised her hands in the air and made fake crowd noises with her mouth. “That was quick!” 

Christen wiped angrily at her face to get rid of the evidence of her emotions. “What?” She demanded. “My lesson is to feel guilty?”

“No.” Sonnett chucked the golden bell at Lindsey (who fumbled the catch) and jumped down. “You said you’re not worth Tobin putting her happiness on hold. So why is your job worth you putting yours on hold?” 

“That’s different,” Christen argued. 

“Is it?” 

No, Christen couldn’t help but think. Right now it doesn’t feel very different. She angrily held out her hand. “Take me back.” 

“Hmmm,” Lindsey leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “Are you sure you’ve learned what you need to? You don’t look like you’ve learned enough.” 

“I kissed Tobin,” Christen blurted out. Neither of her ghosts of Christmas present looked surprised. “That night. We stayed up practically until sunrise and she kissed me and then...and then it snowed and I was late to work on my first day and I realized I couldn’t have both. I couldn’t let myself get distracted like that.” 

“And so you shut her out.” Sonny was suddenly at her shoulder. “You made a choice and you’ve spent four years wondering if it was the wrong one.” 

She didn’t wonder. But her ghosts knew that, and when Sonny pulled at her arm it wasn’t violent or unexpected. She was almost fond of the way their dumb Christmas sweaters lit up her small office when she blinked and they were standing in it. 

“So what’s next?” Christen asked them. 

“One more,” Lindsey reminded her. She put the golden bell on Christen’s desk and gestured to the couch. “You’re going to wake up soon anyway.” 

Christen followed her finger to where she could see herself sleeping quietly on the couch. She opened her mouth to ask how Lindsey knew that, but when she turned back to her desk they weren’t there. Only the bell remained, sitting in the exact middle of the dark cherry desk. 

She waited. And then waited. And then waited some more. It felt like so long - like an eternity and also like no time at all. Then the bell began to shift. It rattled so hard against the wood she would have sworn an earthquake was hitting the middle of Manhattan. It shivered and shuddered across the top of her desk and off the side where it clattered to the ground and rolled until it hit her foot. She bent over to pick it up and when she stood up again someone was sitting at her desk. 

“Carli?” She asked. 

Carli leaned backwards and crossed her feet on Christen’s desk. Her suit was immaculately pressed and fitted, and so dark red there were points where Christen would have sworn it was actually black. “Surprised?” She asked. 

“Kinda of,” Christen admitted. 

“Why?” Carli raised an eyebrow, her ghost of Christmas future casually and intentionally mimicking its real life counterpart. “Aren’t I the future you always saw for yourself?”

Yes, Christen could admit, but also no. Carli was a renowned lawyer, the best at what she did, powerful and smart and exactly the kind of presence Christen wanted to craft. Except Carli was all of those things and only those things. She was the best at what she did, and only at what she did. Christen couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Carli take a personal day or a pro-bono case. 

“Come on, Christen.” Carli pulled her feet off the desk and stood up. “It’s the future you’ve always imagined for yourself.” 

She waved her hand at Christen’s office and it shifted before her very eyes. The pictures on the wall switched out to exquisite hand painted art, the walls pushed out into a larger room, and the two big windows expanded to stretch across two of the four walls. A corner office. 

When Christen looked at Carli again she was holding a business card in her hand. Christen put the golden bell down next to her still-sleeping head on the couch and took it. 

‘Lloyd, Rampone & Press’ it said in elegant gold calligraphy. ‘Partners in corporate law’. 

Christen couldn’t hide the smile that pulled at her mouth when she saw that. Her phone buzzed on the desk. Not her real phone, but this future Christen’s phone. This future Christen who was...still sitting at her desk, scrolling through her email. 

She looked good. It was regal, almost, the way this future Christen held herself at her desk - a dark maple monstrosity larger and more imposing than anything Christen sat behind now. Her phone buzzed again. Future Christen brushed it aside without looking. 

“Who’s calling?” Christen asked into the air. She didn’t expect Carli to answer. Instead she strode over to look, just in time to see her decline another phone call from her father. “Why am I ignoring Dad?” 

“You don’t feel like fighting,” Carli offered. She leaned casually against one of the floor to ceiling windows. 

“I don’t fight with Dad.” Not like that, she argued to herself. Not enough to ignore his calls. Not anything more than spats. “Why am I still here?” 

“Corporate law stops for nobody,” Carli reminded her. “Not for Father Time and not for Santa Claus either.” 

“It’s Christmas? It’s Christmas, and I’m a partner and I’m not there?” 

Carli blinked at her, her facsimile of innocence. “Why would you be there? You haven’t been to a Christmas with your family for ten years at this point.” 

“No.” Christen stepped back. The business card fluttered out of her hands like a lone snowflake. “No, if I’m a partner now I shouldn’t be missing Christmas.” She turned wide, wild eyes to Carli. “That’s what I said. That’s what all this sacrifice was for. So I wouldn’t have to do it anymore!” 

“Sure,” Carli smirked at her. “If you want to be mediocre.” 

“I want to be ME,” Christen exploded. “I don’t want to end up like you!!” 

“Powerful?” 

“ALONE.” 

A ringing filled her ears. At first she thought it was the golden bell, but it got higher and shriller until she could see Carli saying something but she couldn’t hear the words. The glass window behind Carli shattered and the ghost disappeared in the spray of glass and - 

And Christen woke up. 

She woke up gasping and clutching at her chest. Her lungs struggled for air as if she’d run miles. “Fuck, Jesus...fuck.” Christen sat up and put her face in her hands, scrubbing at her cheeks with her palms until she felt mostly stable again. “What a fucking dream.” 

Outside her window, shrieking winds blew swirling eddies of snow past. She stood up and walked to it. The whole city was blanketed. Covered pristinely with an untouched layer of white. A white-out just in time for Christmas. 

As she stood staring at the snow flying past, her laptop pinged with three emails coming in. Christen took a deep breath and closed her laptop with enough force to bounce the machine off her desk. 

Her phone read 10:52 when she picked it up to text Becky. ‘I’m in.’ 

She left everything else in her office, all of her case files and her laptop, her notebooks that she normally brought home to pour over. As for her work phone, she turned it off completely and left it in her desk drawer. 

Her soul felt as clean as the drifts of snow on the sidewalk when she called an Uber to take her home and tipped him double for getting her through the rough conditions. When she got home, she stopped for a moment in the lobby to touch her fingers briefly against the T.H. on the bottom of the sculpture. 

Tobin answered on the second knock. Her eyes widened briefly in surprise. Instead of the usual smug smirk or charming smile, she looked soft and concerned when she opened the door wider. “Christen?” She asked, her voice a delightfully deep tired rasp. 

“Sorry,” Christen blurted. “It’s late. I didn’t realize how late it was. I can go.” 

Tobin caught her wrist before she could get too far. Christen’s pulse leapt at the touch. “No,” she insisted. “Come in. Do you want some food?” 

Christen took a long moment to search dark, honey brown eyes but all that looked back at her was a genuine sincerity to almost brought tears to her eyes. They weren’t together, they were barely even what you would call friends, and yet Christen was fighting the sudden overwhelming urge to crawl into Tobin’s arms and cry. 

“Come on,” Tobin tugged at her wrist to pull her gently inside. She seemed to almost hesitate for a moment, and there was that flicker of surprise again when Christen pulled her wrist away to instead grab Tobin’s hand. She rolled with it, though, squeezing Christen’s fingers tightly as she led her into the kitchen. 

They sat in a comfortable silence as Tobin put together a plate for her. And then, as if sensing her need for normality, Tobin told her about the party she missed. “You’ll have to come next year,” she said, almost like a question. 

“I’ll be on time next year,” Christen said without moving her eyes from her plate. 

She felt a warm hand settle gently, hesitantly on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” Tobin asked. 

Christen’s resolve broke. “Do you ever feel like your life was supposed to be different?” She asked, finally looking up at Tobin. “Like you look around and realize nothing is the way it should be and you have no idea what happened or how to fix it but you’re pretty sure it’s too late?” 

“Yeah,” Tobin answered quietly. “I’ve been there before. But as long as you’re still alive it’s not too late.” 

It was like the words gave her permission. She shoved her plate aside and leaned into Tobin’s shoulder and cried. She mumbled half-muffled words into Tobin’s shirt, and apology and a confession all in one, and she was pretty sure half of it was completely unintelligible but Tobin just rubbed at her back and made quiet humming noises that soothed her more than any real words could have. 

When she was done she was half asleep practically in Tobin’s lap and Tobin - wonderful flirty irreverent Tobin - just kept rubbing at her back and stroking her hair until she fell asleep on her neighbor’s couch with the snow still falling outside. 

* * *

Christen woke up in Tobin’s bed. Unlike any expectation she’d ever had to the idea of waking up in Tobin’s bed, she was alone and fully clothed. Music drifted quietly down the hallway, as if the person playing it knew it would wake her up eventually, and when Christen walked down the hall into the kitchen Tobin was cheerfully humming along to ‘It’s a Holly Jolly Christmas’. 

“Good morning!” She greeted with a beaming smile that was less seduction and more genuine affection than Christen was used to. 

“Good morning,” she murmured back. 

“You had a big night last night. I figured eggs would fix it. Eggs fix everything.” She slid a couple of sunny side up eggs onto a chipped blue plate. “They’re also the only breakfast thing I can cook.” 

“Tobin,” Christen protested weakly. “You don’t have to do this. You already did enough last night.” 

“It’s Christmas, Christen.” Tobin argued. And then, softer, “It’s a do-over Christmas.” 

Christen understood that for what it was: an olive branch and a question all at once. So she took the plate from Tobin’s hands and set it on the counter safely out of harm's way before she ran her hands up the back of Tobin’s neck and tugged until their foreheads touched. 

“Tobin,” she breathed. 

“Hey,” Tobin said back. “Everything’s okay.” 

“If we’re having a do-over Christmas. Does that mean we get a do-over kiss?” 

Tobin’s smile broke open like the sun coming through the heavy snow clouds. It warmed Christen outside and within, and when she pressed that smile against Christen’s lips she couldn’t help but melt into it. She started to smile too when Tobin pressed her hands against her hips and tugged her closer. 

Soon they were both smiling too much to do anything but press quicker, softer kisses together and she laughed when Tobin ran her nose along her cheekbone with a happy sigh. Somewhere through the radio, bells started to chime. 


End file.
